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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244483">Twenty-Five Degrees</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/trippingatthedazeinn/pseuds/trippingatthedazeinn'>trippingatthedazeinn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Child Abuse, Gen, Good Sibling Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Protective Billy Hargrove, Protective Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Siblings, Step-siblings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:35:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,519</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24244483</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/trippingatthedazeinn/pseuds/trippingatthedazeinn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Listen, Max,” Billy said, “this shit should not have happened. You get that, right?”</i>
</p><p><i>Max shrugged awkwardly. “It’s whatever.” That was what people who were not weak said.</i> It’s whatever that your dad gave me a black eye. No big deal, really.</p><p>; (When Max breaks Billy's rule never to defend him, she realizes there are more reasons for it than just the obvious one.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove &amp; Maxine "Max" Mayfield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>178</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Twenty-Five Degrees</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I meant to post this on Friday but then I did god knows what with my life and finally finished it today.  Also I don't know what the title is I am terrible at titling things.  TW for abuse.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>New Years, 1985</strong>
</p><p>Billy was supposed to be here. It was after eight, and he was supposed to have been here fifteen minutes ago. Lucas had left, and Dustin had left, and Will had left.</p><p>Max sat awkwardly on the couch in the living room of the Wheeler house, pretending like she was watching the TV. In reality, she didn’t even know what show was on. This was excruciating.</p><p>Normally, she would just skateboard home. Even though it was pitch black outside and below freezing, she would skateboard home before she called home and alerted Neil or her mother to Billy’s absence. But she didn’t have her skateboard; it was New Years Day and she had been at the Wheelers’ since yesterday evening. If Billy didn’t come, she’d be walking home.</p><p>“He’s pretty late, Max,” Mike said. He was watching TV, too. He probably wasn’t pretending to watch it, blissfully unaware of how precarious this situation was. “Shouldn’t you just, like call and ask if he forgot?”</p><p>Max didn’t think Billy forgot. He didn’t usually forget things. Sometimes he didn’t pick her up when he was supposed to, or didn’t wake her up when he was supposed to, but he didn’t forget. Wherever he was, he knew he was supposed to be here.</p><p>“No, if he’s not here then he’s not at home,” Max answered, hoping this was plausible-sounding.</p><p>“Maybe your mom or something will know where he is, though,” Mike objected.</p><p><em>Or something</em>. Neil, Neil was that <em>or something</em>. And not only would he not know where Billy was, but he would make it his business to know. Max wasn’t going to be responsible for that. She couldn’t be responsible for that.</p><p>“She won’t.” Max knew she was being a bit abrupt with Mike, but she was growing more and more on edge. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler were gone with Holly and wouldn’t be back until the morning, which meant the only licensed driver in the house was Nancy. Max was not about to ask Nancy Wheeler, who didn’t even own a car of her own, to drive her home.</p><p>She was beginning to resign herself to the fact that she was going to have to walk home and then tell some kind of lie about Billy’s whereabouts. Jesus, Billy didn’t exactly make himself easy to protect.</p><p>Max heard the living room clock ticking. It sounded like it was ticking faster than normal. She knew it was her imagination, but the noise was starting to drive her insane; once she’d noticed it, she couldn’t stop.</p><p>“He’s thirty minutes late,” Mike pushed again after a few minutes. It made sense that he wanted to get rid of her. She’d been hanging out with him and the others for a full twenty-four hours by this point, and out of all of them, he liked her the least. Their friendship was improving, but twenty-four hours was a long time for anyone to be with someone else.</p><p>“I know you want me to leave,” Max responded sarcastically. “No need to sugarcoat it.”</p><p>“That’s not what I-”</p><p>“Yeah, okay, I’m just saying.” She was being bitchy, but it was hard to stop. It happened when she was stressed. “I think I’m just going to go home.”</p><p>Mike, who had been keeping half of his focus on the TV this whole time, spun his head to look directly at her. “What? Like, walk? It’s like twenty-five degrees.”</p><p>She wondered if she’d die. At least her corpse would be preserved by the cold. She’d read about that in National Geographic.</p><p>Her eyes panned to the clock, which continued to tick incessantly. 8:32.</p><p>“There’s this really cool invention called a coat,” Max said, like the idea of walking three miles in twenty-five degree weather wasn’t insane.</p><p>“Just call your parents,” Mike said, rolling his eyes. “Can’t your mom drive you home or something?”</p><p>There was that <em>or something</em> again, as if Max would ever ask Neil to drive her home. As if Neil would ever voluntarily come drive her home. He’d slam Billy into a wall over not coming to drive her home, but he wouldn’t likely do it himself.</p><p>Max was spared from having to come up with a response by the unmistakable sound of a car coming down the street. It was loud, the way Billy’s Camaro was. It was 8:34 and he was thirty-four minutes late, but he had come. Max sighed inwardly, profoundly relieved.</p><p>Any shroud of doubt that the car might not be Billy went away when both Max and Mike heard him honking from outside: his signal for her to come, because he didn’t feel like going up to the front door and knocking.</p><p>“He’s here,” Max informed Mike, in case he might not have realized it on his own.</p><p>Mike made a face at her like he wasn’t stupid and he knew it was Billy, but Max ignored it, busy gathering up her stuff as fast as she could. Even though Billy was extremely late, he would be pissed if she didn’t get out to the car as fast as possible. Mike didn’t comment on how fast she was moving, clearly understanding that with Billy things were time sensitive. Though Max’s friends didn’t understand what Neil was like, what her house overall was like, they did think they understood what Billy was like. He was the crazy person who had almost killed Steve a couple months ago.</p><p>With her coat half on and her backpack slung over her shoulder, Max rushed out of the living room and to the front door, Mike following behind her.</p><p>“See you later,” she said absently as she unlocked the Wheelers’ front door herself and pushed it open.</p><p>“Bye,” Mike echoed back to her. She was already crossing the lawn to the street, where Billy’s Camaro was parked.</p><p>The engine was still on, the headlights illuminating part of the street ahead of the Camaro. It was a little icy out, and Max nearly slipped as she stepped from the grass onto the asphalt of the sidewalk. Regaining stability, she moved as quickly as she could while still verifying that her footing was steady.</p><p>She attempted to pull open the passenger side door, but it was locked. She knocked slightly on the window to indicate that was it locked, and she saw Billy glance lazily at her before pressing the automatic unlock button. She pulled again and this time the door swung open.</p><p>She considered telling him that he was late, but, again, she knew he hadn’t forgotten. He knew he was late. And most likely he did not care at all.</p><p>Anyway, her attention was drawn away from his lateness when she noticed a reddish-purple bruise on the right side of his face. He had not had that yesterday evening when he’d dropped her off at the Wheelers’. It could only mean one thing: Neil. Was this why he was late? All consideration of bringing up his lateness instantly disappeared.</p><p>Billy slid the gear shift from park to drive, gunning the engine forward. Max was slammed back into her seat by the force of the acceleration, but her thoughts were still on Billy’s bruise. It was odd that he had that bruise; Neil did not routinely hit Billy hard enough in the face for him to bruise like that. Most of the time, his violence was more subtle: a shove into the refrigerator or a heavy slap across the face. He didn’t beat Billy senselessly like Max had seen people do on TV. Unlike her mother, Max knew full well that what Neil did to Billy was not normal, but if Neil had hit Billy that hard, something serious must have happened.</p><p>“What happened to your face?” Max asked nonchalantly, breaking the silence between them. She said it like it was a mere point of curiosity. Like they didn’t know both know what had most likely caused it.</p><p>Billy did not confirm or deny that it was Neil, which Max had expected. “Mind your own business,” he said. The car accelerated even more, most definitely defying the speed limit. They were already at the end of the cul-de-sac, and Billy turned the car while barely braking. This time, Max was slammed into the car door.</p><p>Interestingly, Billy seemed no angrier than usual. Max was used to him taking his fights with his dad out on her. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d made some comment about her spending her New Years with a bunch of boys, like he had yesterday. But he said nothing at all for most of the drive, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music blasting from his speakers.</p><p>“So, you kiss any of your little friends at midnight?” Billy asked, right as he was turning his car onto their street.</p><p>Max knew he was probably thinking of Lucas. He hadn’t said anything about her hanging out with Lucas ever since the night with the bat, but he didn’t have to say it in specific words for her to know what he meant. “Gross, no,” she answered truthfully. “I’m not you. I don’t have sex with girls every time I go to a party.”</p><p>“You don’t have sex with girls?”</p><p>With anyone else, she might have laughed. With Billy, she cringed, feeling stupid. “You know what I meant.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, watch your mouth.” Max didn’t know if he was referring to her commenting on him having sex, or her suggesting she might have sex with girls. Probably the former, but it wouldn’t have shocked her if it was the latter.</p><p>Billy slammed hard on the brakes when the Camaro reached their house. Max waited for him to turn off the engine, then pushed open the car door, pulling her backpack with her out of the car. Billy shut his own driver’s side door and started for the house, Max walking after him. His legs were longer than hers and she had to trot to keep up, trying not to skid on the patches of ice leading to the porch steps.</p><p>Billy fumbled in his jacket pocket for his house keys and started to unlock the door. If Max were home and Neil was out, he would have hammered his fist on the door until she came to let him in. But Neil was not out. Max snuck a look at the bruise on Billy’s face again. She hated herself for being glad that she hadn’t been home whenever that happened.</p><p>Billy pushed the door in and Max slid inside after him. He didn’t bother to shut the door behind her so she did it, pausing to turn the deadbolt and then lock the handle. When she turned back around, Neil was standing in the living room.</p><p>“You’re later than you said you were going to be,” he informed both of them. Max didn’t know if he was talking more to her or Billy. She was the one who was supposed to come home by eight-fifteen, but Billy was the one who was supposed to <em>get</em> her home by eight-fifteen.</p><p>Like always, Max’s ability to speak largely vanished. She could if she really wanted to, but it was like there was a door in between her voice and the world, and a deep-rooted anxiety was preventing her from opening that door. She found herself watching Billy rather than Neil, waiting to hear his reply. She wouldn’t really have blamed him if he threw her under the bus; whatever Neil would do to her wouldn’t be half as bad as what he’d do to Billy. Sure, she would have been upset if he threw her under the bus, because Neil scared her, she’d understand.</p><p>“You said eight-forty-five,” was Billy’s response. Max briefly wondered if Billy genuinely thought Neil had said eight-forty-five, then realized he was obviously lying. He was a convincing liar.</p><p>“No, I said eight-fifteen,” Neil said back. He held his mouth partially open, like he was about to say more, then squinted his eyes at Billy’s face. “What the hell happened to your face?”</p><p><em>What?</em> It took Max a moment to comprehend that apparently Neil had not, in fact, been responsible for that bruise. She had just assumed. It made more sense that it was someone else, really. It had to be from someone who didn’t care what kind of marks they left. Billy had probably gotten into a fight.</p><p>Neil was thinking along the same lines. “Did you get in a fight?” He asked, voice growing slightly louder. It wasn’t a yell, but there was an intense, audible edge to it. If Max being late had irritated him, Billy fighting made him properly mad. But with Neil, it was like there was no code for <em>mad</em> in his system. He’d hold his voice steady even when he was pinning Billy against the wall and calling him a pussy.</p><p>“Some guy thought he could take me, and he couldn’t,” Billy said. “Would you rather I be a pussy and back down?” It was a smart thing to say, in Max’s opinion.</p><p>“Looks like he took you well enough to give you that bruise,” Neil said icily. “What do you think people think when they see that you’re getting into fights all the time?”</p><p>Max had no idea how often Billy got into fights, but she didn’t think he had been visibly hurt because of one the entire time they’d been in Hawkins. Even when Billy had fought Steve, there had been no major physical evidence of the fight on Billy. She got why Neil was mad, though; he didn’t like it when Billy acted recklessly in a way that might affect his own reputation. That was literally why they had moved to Hawkins.</p><p>“I don’t see why you’d care who I fight or not,” Billy said. It was another lie. Just like her, Billy had to get why Neil was mad. But though there was no recognizable fear in his voice, Max knew Billy was probably becoming afraid. She could tell by the way he held himself. Normally, he puffed out his chest and held his shoulders back so they’d appear as broad as possible. But they were a bit more relaxed right now. And anyway, of course Billy was becoming afraid. If Neil ever looked at her like that, she’d be afraid, too.</p><p>Neil stepped closer to Billy. “I don’t remember asking you if you thought I should care or not.”</p><p>It was over. Max knew the body language, knew the intonation of Neil’s voice. It caused her own shoulders to tense up. She felt vulnerable in her position behind Billy. <em>Not as vulnerable as</em> <em>Billy</em>, she thought. No, <em>vulnerable</em> wasn’t a word that could ever describe Billy. He could kill Neil if he wanted to. He could shove Neil through the wall and knock him out so he’d never wake up.</p><p>But he wouldn’t. It was the same routine, and Max had no doubts as to how it would go because it had gone the same way so many times that she felt it everywhere. It was in the air and the sound of Billy breathing and the sound of her own breathing.</p><p>“The bruise will be gone before school even starts again,” Billy protested, clearly choosing to focus on the reason Neil cared. It was also a lie, of course. Bruises didn’t heal in two days.</p><p>Max’s mind was whirring, trying to think of absolutely anything that she could do to stop it. Was there anything she could say? Billy would be pissed at her if she defended him. He always was, so she never did. But every time the same mental battle plagued her of whether or not she should try.</p><p>Neil was closing the distance between him and Billy. He was going to grab him. It was always the same.</p><p>“How was your New Years?” Max said. <em>How was your New Years?</em> Was that really the best thing she could think of? It didn’t even sound like something she would say. She would never ask Neil about his New Years. She would never make conversation with Neil in general.</p><p>Neil paused, eyes flickering to Max for less than half a second before they went back to Billy.</p><p>“Go away, Max,” Billy said, voice so low it was practically a growl.</p><p>Max didn’t argue. There was no world in which she’d argue. She darted around Billy, feet carrying her through the living room, away. Away, where he couldn’t go.</p><p>She couldn’t see Neil slam Billy into the front door, but she heard it. She knew that sound almost as well as she knew the sound of Billy’s Camaro.</p><p>Her feet kept moving, through the kitchen and down the hall.</p><p>She heard Billy saying he was sorry. He didn’t say it like he meant it, but he said it.</p><p>Her feet were in front of her bedroom door. She turned the knob, bursting into the room and shutting the door behind her. She considered slamming it; Neil hated when she slammed doors. She shut it quietly.</p><p>She could still hear Neil’s voice, booming at Billy from the living room. The house wasn’t big enough and the walls weren’t thick enough.</p><p>She didn’t know what record was even in the record player on her dresser, but she pressed start. The turntable started spinning, Bon Jovi filling the room. It drowned out the sound of Neil completely.</p><p>But completely was too much. It was the paradox that she didn’t understand. She always put on music, her attempt to conceal what was really going on. But she was terrified of concealing it entirely. There was a comfort in hearing the fight, knowing that whatever Neil was doing to Billy, he wasn’t literally killing him. She needed that comfort.</p><p>She went to her bedroom door and sank down against it, head tilted sideways so her ear was pressed into the door. This way, one ear heard Bon Jovi and one ear heard what she didn’t want to hear. Just in case. Just in case <em>what</em> she didn’t know. She couldn’t do anything to help Billy. He had made that abundantly clear the first time she’d seen Neil hit him. Her job was to go away.</p><p>Through the door, she heard Neil slap Billy. She winced.</p><p><em>Go away, Max.</em> Bon Jovi. This would end soon.</p><p>She heard Neil slap Billy again.</p><p>Her hand was closing over the doorknob. It was like there were two voices in her mind, one screaming at her to stop and one just screaming in general. She knew herself and she knew that she wouldn’t actually open the door. She’d listen for it to end and wonder if she should have opened the door, but she wouldn’t actually open the door.</p><p>She heard a different sound. A punch. This was worse than normal. If it wasn’t just slapping, it was worse. Billy wasn’t vulnerable. He could fight back, he could kill Neil.</p><p>He wouldn’t.</p><p>Her hand twisted the doorknob all the way and pulled. She scooted forward on the floor to allow the door to come open into the room. She heard another punch. The voice in her mind that was just screaming in general was growing louder.</p><p>She stood up, using the doorknob to steady herself. Then she slipped through the small opening between the door and the doorway that she had made. She moved down the hall towards the kitchen.</p><p>“Is this what happens in these fights of yours?” Neil was saying to Billy. “Doesn’t feel as good when you’re on the other end of it, does it?”</p><p>Max’s mind screamed louder. She was running, into the kitchen and then into the living room. Neil had Billy shoved into the front door. Billy stayed there resolutely, looking pained. Whenever he looked like that, it was like the world had turned upside down. Billy wasn’t supposed to look that that. He made people look like that, not the other way around.</p><p>Her running had been loud enough to alert both Billy and Neil to her presence. Billy stared at her and Neil twisted his head slightly so that he could stare at her, too.</p><p>“Go back to your room, Maxine,” Neil said. There was no room for discussion in it.</p><p>She hesitated. She felt frozen, seeing the scene she usually only imagined from the safety of her bedroom.</p><p>“Leave,” Billy said. He was angrier than Neil was that she was there. He glared at her in a way that told her she was going to regret having come back out.</p><p>She spun around. She could no longer see what Neil was doing to Billy, but the sound of the punches she’d heard from her bedroom kept replaying in her mind.</p><p>She was in the kitchen now. Billy and Neil might still be watching her, or they might not. She heard another punch. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew that Neil had punched Billy’s face. The noise was specific, like the punch had collided with something hard. Billy’s jaw was hard.</p><p>A thought occurred to her as she crossed from the kitchen into the hall: Billy had been in a fight. People presumably knew that he had been in a fight. Neil was smart. He could do this to Billy right now, tonight, because Billy had been in a fight and one or two or three more bruises on Billy’s face would be written off.</p><p>She needed her music. She needed her music to block this out. There was the second punch into Billy’s face. Where was her mother? Was she hiding in the bedroom? How could Max blame her if she was going to do the same thing?</p><p>
  <em>Go away, Max.</em>
</p><p>She was running again. Not to her bedroom, not to the safety of her door and her Bon Jovi, but back to the living room. Deep inside she knew if she thought about what she was doing she would stop herself and she didn’t think the right thing to do was to stop herself, so she didn’t think about what she was doing. She just ran.</p><p>Billy’s lip was swollen. Her vision wasn’t clear from the motion of her movement, but she saw that Billy’s lip was swollen and Neil’s hand was in a fist. He was going to hit him again.</p><p>Billy would kill her if she defended him. Neil wouldn’t kill Billy. Billy would live on. But his lip was swollen and Neil was going to hit him again and if she thought about what she was doing, she wouldn’t do it.</p><p>She ran right into Neil. She’d meant to stop a little behind him, but her brain didn’t send cues to her legs to stop moving fast enough.</p><p>Neil swore at the impact of her entire body weight. She leapt back, all knowledge of what she had even come out here to do gone from her mind. Neil looked completely around, eyebrows raised.</p><p>“Go away,” Billy said to her. It was the third time he’d uttered that sentiment. The first two times she had listened, and she was probably going to listen again because his voice had that power over her.</p><p>But Neil shook his head. She didn’t like the way his eyes moved over her, like she was an insect. “No, don’t,” he said slowly. “Stay if you want to so badly.”</p><p>She didn’t want to stay, she didn’t think. She wanted Neil to stop. Wasn’t that why she was out here? If this was going to go like it always did, he would stop soon. It wouldn’t last much longer.</p><p>She shouldn’t have come back out here. But she had, and now she was being told that she had to stay. Of course, she could disobey Neil. It might be crazy, but she thought she was more likely to disobey Neil than to disobey Billy. She didn’t see herself disobeying either of them, however.</p><p>She wasn’t certain that her voice would work well enough to say it, but she tried anyway. “Leave Billy alone.”</p><p>Billy was going to kill her for this. But if she had to stay and watch Neil punch Billy, the number of reasons to stop him increased. It probably meant she was a terrible person that that increased the reasons, but she couldn’t control all the feelings that dictated her actions.</p><p>“Shut up,” Billy roared. “I can take care of myself, Max, get out of here.”</p><p>Whenever she was next alone with Billy, she was dead.</p><p>Billy, apparently, was also dead. “I give the orders, not you,” Neil boomed at Billy, turning his body back so that it was centered in front of him. Before Max even noticed his hand going up, he’d slapped Billy fully across the face.</p><p>Just a slap. But it was because of her. Did Billy always tell her to go away because he thought she’d made things worse? She’d never considered that. She had made things worse.</p><p>She wanted to undo what she’d done. But there was no rewind button on life. There was only what you did in the moment or in the future.</p><p>Neil’s hand was still raised. Hadn’t he done enough? This response was greater than it needed to be just for Billy fighting. It wasn’t just for that, she realized. It was because she had pissed off Neil more, and he wasn’t going to hit her.</p><p>He wasn’t going to hit her. He never did. He never had.</p><p>She pushed forward with intention this time, hands closing wildly around Neil’s arm. She pulled on it with all her might, managing to bring it down to his side before he shook her off. He shook her off so hard that she stumbled backwards, only half registering that he was staring at her now, eyes so narrow that they were like slits on his ugly face.</p><p>Her brain was short-circuiting. He was angry. He had been angry before, but now he was truly angry at her. Angry at her like he was angry at Billy. He wasn’t going to hit her.</p><p>She saw his fist coming at her, but it didn’t even occur to her to dodge it until she felt on her cheekbone, pain radiating down the side of her face. She was falling, hands automatically going down to catch herself as she tumbled to the wood floor. She sat there, stunned, feeling an ache that was somehow sharp and dull at the same time where Neil had struck her.</p><p>Billy, who had remained against the front door this entire time, moved forward, grabbing one of Neil’s shoulders. His expression was unreadable, but the words he spoke were clear: “Get out of here, Max.”</p><p>She no longer thought he was telling her to get out of there because he didn’t want her to defend him. He was telling her to get out of there because he was defending her. The hand that he had on Neil’s shoulders was all the confirmation she needed.</p><p>If she were braver, stronger, maybe she would have refused to leave. Maybe she would have maintained that Neil wouldn’t hurt her like he hurt Billy. But the pain on her face was real. The terror that she felt from Neil standing so close to her was real.</p><p>She started to get up, ready to flee, ready to let Billy defend her even though he had no real business doing it considering how much he hated to be defended himself.</p><p>“Yes, get out of here, Maxine,” Neil said.</p><p>He didn’t need to. She was going. Feet upright on the floor, she started to back away.</p><p>But Neil stepped towards her, shaking his shoulder violently to rid himself of Billy’s hand. “No, not to your room. Get out of here. If you think you’re going to police how things work in my house, then you’re not welcome in it. Get out of here.”</p><p>Neil shoved past Billy to unlock the front door and pulled it open. She stared, hardly believing him. As if Neil would joke about something like that. He meant it. He wanted her to leave.</p><p>It was twenty-five degrees outside and she was only in jeans and a hoodie. She wondered if he’d mind if she grabbed her coat from her bedroom. She figured he would probably mind. So she went. She walked to the opening in the door and through it, the cold air causing her to shiver when she was only on the porch. Neil shut the door.</p><p>The front door was thicker than her bedroom door, so she didn’t know if she’d be able to hear Neil hitting Billy through it. She didn’t hear anything, which either meant that she couldn’t hear it in general or that Neil had stopped. She hoped he’d stopped, because if he hadn’t then everything had been for nothing.</p><p>Everything, as in the horrible pain in her face and the fact that she was likely going to freeze to death out here.</p><p>She wrapped her arms around herself and went to the porch steps, sitting down on them to think. Now was the time to make some kind of plan, but she had no ideas and wasn’t particularly focused on coming up with any. She kept imagining the way Neil’s fist had come at her, kept re-experiencing the sensation of it, the sensation of falling to the floor. She was no longer in that kind of danger, but the fear remained and she didn’t know why. It would have made sense if she were scared of freezing, but she didn’t think that was why she was scared.</p><p>To her surprise, she heard the front door open behind her. Was Neil going to let her come back in? She twisted her torso around to look without getting up, but it wasn’t Neil. It was Billy. He had the keys to his Camaro in his hand, and he shut the front door behind him without a word.</p><p>He walked right past her down the steps, not even glancing back to tell her to come with him. But he obviously expected her to come with him, so she got up and followed him to the Camaro.</p><p>She waited on the passenger side for him to unlock his car door, and then he pressed the button to unlock the passenger door, too. So he did intend for her to come with him. She got into his car for the second time that night. It was freezing inside, too, albeit slightly warmer than outside. Billy immediately twisted the key to start the car and cranked up the heat, the fans blowing cold air before it began to become warm.</p><p>Before he stepped on the gas to make the car move, he leaned towards her side of the car so his face was less than two feet from hers. “That’s why you don’t get involved,” he said.</p><p>Was it? She really doubted that Billy was protecting her every time he told her to go away. She knew he wasn’t, because if she tried to help him even after his dad had left him alone, he yelled at her to go away. But maybe there was more than one reason that he said it.</p><p>“He does that to you all the time,” she responded, like the fact that Neil had hit her wasn’t deeply traumatizing. She didn’t want Billy to know how much it had traumatized her, not when he faced that type of thing constantly. If there was one thing she didn’t want Billy to think about her, it was that she was weak.</p><p>“Yeah, well, he’s not your dad, Max,” Billy answered evenly. He always sounded dangerous when he talked to her, like at any moment he might threaten her. But she didn’t think the edge in his voice right now was directed at her. Though he had told her to go away and she hadn’t listened, Neil hitting her seemed to have erased his desire to destroy her for that.</p><p>Max touched the area under her eye with her fingers, wincing. She was probably going to have a black eye. Billy watched her do it, and she quickly set her hand back in her lap. “He shouldn’t do it to you, eith-”</p><p>“Shut up, I’m thinking,” Billy interrupted her. He must have slammed on the gas, because the car jolted forward. Less than four seconds later, they were probably already going the speed limit.</p><p>She had no idea where they were going. She guessed that was what Billy was thinking about. How long was she even exiled for? Was he with her, driving away from their house, just because <em>she</em> was exiled? He could go back. He didn’t have to drive her anywhere. She didn’t point this out. She had an inclination that he wouldn’t respond well to her pointing it out.</p><p>Billy turned the volume up on the radio. It was playing Journey, but it still reminded Max of being in her room some ten minutes ago. It was strange that it had only been ten minutes ago. Ten minutes, a black eye, and a half mile ago.</p><p>They were driving along the same path they did nearly every day. It reminded her of going to the Snow Ball a few weeks ago, because she had traveled to school in the dark like this then, too. She had been excited then, as well as nervous. Now, she was wholly nervous and not a little excited.</p><p>Billy didn’t talk the entire drive, and she wasn’t about to start a conversation. She didn’t even comment when he turned into the Hawkins High parking lot, braking hard into a parking spot far away from the school. His Camaro was the only car in the lot.</p><p>Billy twisted the key so that the engine was off but the music continued playing, then turned down the volume slightly. The heating stayed on, too, though the warm air became slightly less warm and more stale.</p><p>Max continued to stare forward like they were driving. Were they just going to sit here in silence until it was safe for her to go home?</p><p>“Never pull anything like that shit again, do you understand me?” Billy said suddenly.</p><p>She risked turning her head to face him. There was only one acceptable response when Billy spoke like that, and two months ago she would have given it without a second thought. But ever since she’d stood over him with a bat and told him to leave her alone, their dynamic had shifted ever so slightly. He was still domineering and dangerous, but she felt empowered to push back a bit more.</p><p>“I’ll do what I want,” she answered. The power with which she said it was entirely fake.</p><p>He raised his eyebrows at her. “Yeah? Say that again.”</p><p>She was rarely so empowered that she challenged him twice. Tonight, after everything that had happened, she was surprised she’d even challenged him once. “I understand,” she muttered. It felt like a contract. Now that she’d said she understood, she truly could never get involved ever again, like she’d officially signed away her right to doing so.</p><p>“That’s what I thought.” Billy turned the car off all the way, plunging them into total silence. She supposed the battery would die if they sat there running it down, but she wished the music would continue playing. It had been reassuring.</p><p>Max absently reached her hand up to her face again.</p><p>“You’ve got a black eye, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Billy informed her.</p><p>She had never had a black eye before. Whenever characters in movies got them, she thought it looked pretty badass. But she didn’t feel badass at having one. She felt the opposite, because of the reason she had one.</p><p>She didn’t want to talk about what had happened. She didn’t know if Billy was even going to, but she chose a different path just in case. “Why did you get in a fight?”</p><p>Unlike earlier, he didn’t tell her to mind her own business. He just shrugged like the fact he’d been in a fight was as inconsequential as the weather being partially cloudy. “Drunk guys get to be full of shit.”</p><p>So he’d been telling the truth when he said some guy had thought he could take Billy and couldn’t. Of course some guy from Hawkins couldn’t take Billy. Max couldn’t imagine being so drunk that you thought you could. She didn’t know what to say to this, so she didn’t say anything.</p><p>“Listen, Max,” Billy said, “this shit should not have happened.” Maybe she should have thought of something else to say about the fight. “You get that, right?”</p><p>She didn’t understand quite what Billy meant. Obviously Neil was not supposed to hit her. He was not supposed to hit Billy. It was illegal. But he had been breaking that law to hit Billy as long as Max had known him.</p><p>Max shrugged awkwardly. “It’s whatever.” That was what people who were not weak said.<em> It’s whatever that your dad gave me a black eye. No big deal, really.</em></p><p>“Shut up, shithead, it’s not whatever,” Billy snapped. “That’s not going to happen again, because you’re not going to get involved. End of story.”</p><p>Again, Max didn’t know what to say so she didn’t say anything. She bit down hard into her lip, drawing blood.</p><p>“You got somewhere I can take you?” Billy said now. “The Wheelers or one of those other boys you’re friends with’s houses?”</p><p>Max played out a scene in her head where she rang the Wheelers’ doorbell with a black eye and asked Mike if she could sleep over. Then she played out a scene where she rang the Sinclairs’ doorbell and asked Lucas the same thing. Neither one was remotely viable.</p><p>“I can’t go there like this,” she said softly. She didn’t like referencing the black eye. Even though Billy could likely see it under the soft glow of the few lights in the parking lot, she’d rather pretend it didn’t exist. “Nobody can know about this, and you know it.”</p><p>Billy rolled his eyes. “That’s why you tell them some bullshit story.”</p><p>Max imagined what any of her friends would say when they saw her black eye. What story explained a black eye? Walking into a door? “What am I supposed to tell them?”</p><p>“Jesus, I don’t care,” Billy replied coldly. “That’s not my problem. Say I did it to you for all I care.”</p><p>Say he did it to her. It was the most plausible explanation. All of her friends already suspected how Billy treated her, and their suspicions were worse than the truth. Billy would never give her a black eye. She didn’t think he’d ever given her a proper bruise. But it was believable.</p><p>“No.” Max’s voice didn’t waver when she said it. She meant it. She was not going to say Billy had done this to her. Not when, if anything, he might have stopped it from being worse. “I’m not going to say that.”</p><p>Billy studied her. “Well I don’t give a shit what you say,” he said after a moment. “So where is it going to be? The Wheelers?” He probably kept saying the Wheelers because he didn’t want to take her to the Sinclairs.</p><p>Regardless, she shook her head. “Nowhere. I know I can’t go back, but you can.” If Billy left her out here, she didn’t know what she’d do. Somehow she was uncomfortable with him doing this for her, though. Sometimes he said shit like he "had to look out for her” or that they “were family” but only when he was being domineering. She didn’t understand why he was willingly spending his time with her in a car in the school parking lot at nine-thirty at night.</p><p>“You don’t even have a fucking coat, so shut up about that,” Billy replied sharply. “You want to just sit here? Then fine.”</p><p>He turned the key in the ignition again and the radio came back on. It was playing Bon Jovi, now, the same song Max had been listening to in her bedroom: Runaway. The music lodged itself in her mind, a wave of memories of the past half hour spinning around in it. She felt tears in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, that she didn’t want to be there. She wasn’t about to cry in front of Billy, not after she’d worked so hard to prove to him that she wasn’t weak just because his dad had punched her.</p><p>Billy rolled down the window a crack and then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. Apparently he had turned the car on just so they didn’t freeze to death while he smoked. He lit the cigarette and took a drag off it.</p><p>Max watched the way the smoke floated upwards and then found its way out the car window, trying to concentrate on this in order to stop her tears from flowing. It was difficult.</p><p>“The key to Neil,” Billy said seriously, holding his cigarette away from his mouth, “is to never let him see you’ve lost control.”</p><p>She had definitely lost control when she’d run into Neil in the living room. It must have been obvious. She thought about how she acted in general; did she often lose control?</p><p>A thought struck her, and though she probably should just have suppressed it, she heard herself ask, “Does that work with you?”</p><p>Billy squinted at her, taking another drag off of his cigarette. “What?”</p><p>If he didn’t know what she meant, there was no way she was going to clarify herself.</p><p>He did know what she meant. “I’m not like him,” Billy said. The tension in his voice was palpable. He had not liked that question. She’d known he wouldn’t like it, so she really should have suppressed it. “Don’t <em>ever</em> say that again.”</p><p>Her tears took this opportune moment to come streaming down her face. She didn’t wipe at them, hoping the car was too dark for Billy to notice them. But his eyes moved across her face in a way that suggested he did notice them. She swallowed, focusing on the fact that he was mad at her for what she’d said rather than the fact that she was crying about something different. “I won’t. You’re not like him.”</p><p>Billy nodded slowly, hanging the hand that held his cigarette out the window. “Good.”</p><p>But she hadn’t just said it because he was mad at her. She’d meant it. He was not like Neil. He was nothing like Neil. Like Billy said, Neil hated when people lost control of themselves. But Billy loved to lose control. It was what he did best.</p><p>She held her breath so the tears would continue to fall silently, but eventually she had to exhale. When she did, her breath came out hard, hard enough that any illusion of Billy not knowing she was crying was over. She turned her head so she was facing forward again, wiping furiously at her eyes.</p><p>“Listen,” Billy said, the sound of him talking covering up the heaviness of her breathing, “what you did back there was stupid as hell.”</p><p>Max clasped her hands together tightly and continued to stare forward. “I know.” Her voice sounded gross.</p><p>What Billy said next surprised her. “It was brave, though. You’ve got some nerve.”</p><p>Brave? Billy never called her brave. Not even the night Eleven had closed the gate, when she’d been high on the power she’d thought she’d gained over him. That had not lasted long, but she had felt brave then. He had not said it.</p><p>Max ran the back of her hand over her cheeks and glanced at Billy. “Why didn’t you-” she started, then stopped herself. She couldn’t ask that.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>She avoided making eye contact with him. “Nothing.”</p><p>Of course Billy wouldn’t let her get away with starting a sentence and not finishing it. “You were going to say something. Say it.”</p><p>“Noth-”</p><p>“Say it, Max.”</p><p>She sighed, trembling slightly. “Why didn’t you do anything until he hit me? I couldn’t really stop him. But you could. You’re way stronger than he is.” It was a question that had plagued her for ages, ever since the day she’d realized just how much bigger Billy was than Neil.</p><p>As she’d expected, Billy did not appear to like that she had asked him this. His answer both made a lot of sense and made no sense: “There is a lot of shit you don’t understand.”</p><p>That was all. It made sense because he was implying that he had a reason for not standing up to Neil, and it didn’t make sense because he didn’t provide a reason. But Max wasn’t as stupid as Billy maybe thought she was. She knew why he didn’t stand up to Neil, and it wasn’t because he had a real reason. He wasn’t afraid of Neil because there was some reason he couldn’t stop him from doing what he did. He didn’t stop him from doing what he did because he was afraid of him.</p><p>They were plunged back into silence, and Max didn’t think either of them were going to break it this time. Billy smoked for another minute or two then snuffed the cigarette and rolled the window back up. When he turned the car off again, his eyes flickered over to her and she thought that maybe he didn’t think she was stupid. Maybe he was just as worried about her seeing him as weak as she was about him seeing her as weak.</p><p>Billy might not be like Neil, but she was more like Billy than she wanted to be.</p><p>They stayed in the car until after ten o’clock, Billy alternating between leaving the engine on, leaving the music and heat on without the engine, and turning the car off.</p><p>At a seemingly random time, Billy started the engine and zoomed the Camaro out of the parking lot. The clock said 10:24, so his decision to leave had clearly been governed by his own whims and not the time. They hadn’t really talked since Max had asked him why he didn’t stand up to his dad, so she didn’t say anything about him driving away, either.</p><p>It was after ten-thirty when Billy’s Camaro was parked back in front of their house and they were both walking up the porch steps. Neither of them discussed that they needed to be quiet, but they both were, anyway.</p><p>Neil had to work the following morning, and he usually went to bed before ten o’clock on work nights. Max didn’t know what would happen if he was still awake when they came back. Though he had given her a black eye before, she had a feeling he would be more angry at Billy for driving her than at her. The natural order of things was that Neil blamed Billy for everything. She didn’t exactly hope it would stay that way, but she didn’t want to become Neil’s second target, either.</p><p>Billy inched open the front door and went inside ahead of Max. He walked softly, but she full on tiptoed, barely lifting her feet from the floor with each step that she took. She anticipated that Billy would go to his room without another word to her, but instead he lingered in the kitchen, looking at her meaningfully like she was meant to stay.</p><p>She did, standing awkwardly in between the kitchen and the hall. Billy went to the freezer and withdrew a white plastic bag of corn. He threw it at her, startling her so that she only caught it at the very last second, and headed back towards the hall.</p><p>Corn? What was she supposed to do with corn?</p><p>Probably because she was looking at it stupidly instead of doing whatever it was she was supposed to be doing with it, Billy stopped in front of her and grabbed her hand that was holding the corn, pressing it against her black eye.</p><p>Oh. She held it there, feeling like an idiot for not realizing. Billy ignored her expression of comprehension and turned down the hall. She watched him go into his room and shut the door without looking at her before she walked down the hall to her own room.</p><p>Inside, she fell backwards onto her bed, continuing to press the frozen corn onto her eye. She didn’t really see the point of it. Billy had confirmed that she had a black eye when they were in the car over an hour ago. It was obviously too late to change that. But Billy had more experience than she did in this matter and he had told her to ice her black eye, so she did.</p><p>She laid on her bed and iced her black eye until she felt the bag dripping onto her, melting. Then she tossed it onto the floor and went to change into her pajamas. She hadn’t brushed her teeth, but the rest of the house felt like a war zone that she was in hiding from. She would survive if she didn’t brush her teeth for one night.</p><p>Only in the safety of her bed, the covers coming all the way up under her chin, did she start to cry again. Her heart thumped in her chest and the tears cascaded onto her pillow. She ran the events of the night over and over in her brain, processing and evaluating them.</p><p>Billy didn’t want Neil to hurt her. He had held Neil back, told Max to get out of there. He’d left the house just to stop her from freezing to death. He didn’t have to do that. And he had told her that what she did was brave. He didn’t like what she did, didn’t want her to ever do it again, but yet he had told her it was brave.</p><p>She was crying herself to sleep just because she’d been punched in the face one time. That was hardly brave. But he had said it and he had meant it.</p><p><em>Never pull anything like that shit again</em>. That was what he’d said. And she had agreed. Some part of her was relieved that she had agreed, like a burden had been lifted from her. That was the part of her that wasn’t brave. She was a baby who listened to music and waited for the conflict to be over.</p><p>Tonight, she had been brave, and she had paid for it. Billy didn’t want her to do it ever again, and she was relieved that he didn’t. That said something about her, surely, but she didn’t know what.</p><p>She couldn’t think about it anymore.</p>
<hr/><p>The following morning, Max woke up before her alarm. Well, before the time that her alarm usually went off. The moment that she looked at the clock and saw the time she realized she had completely forgotten to set her alarm at all.</p><p>She felt like shit, but not quite tired. Rather than setting her alarm and going back to sleep for another half hour, she chose to get out of bed and get dressed. She studied herself in the mirror, assessing how bad the black eye was. She hadn’t actually looked at it last night. The skin right around her eye was a deep purple, but it wasn’t as bad as it could be.</p><p>“I walked into a door, it hurt, like, so fucking bad,” she whispered, testing out the lie. It would have to do. Her friends would just assume Billy did it to her, anyway. She didn’t like that, but it was better than the alternative.</p><p>Fully dressed and her lie established, Max exited her room and headed for the kitchen. Her mother sat at the dining table drinking her coffee and reading the newspaper. Billy was there, too, leaning against the counter as he drunk coffee out of a large mug.</p><p>Max tried not to look at him. She was distracted, anyway, by her mother gasping at the sight of her. Max hadn’t thought about how Susan would react to the black eye. There was no way Neil was dumb enough to not cover his tracks though. He probably had said some bullshit to Susan about an accident and Max causing trouble. Whatever it was, it was not enough to prevent Susan from gasping but it was enough to prevent her from saying anything. Her eyes traveled over Max and then settled back onto her face.</p><p>“Um, how was your New Years with your friends?” She asked Max carefully. Max thought she heard Billy snort in the background, plainly also hyper aware of the lengths Susan was going to pretend nothing was wrong.</p><p>Max didn’t have the patience for this. She was already stressed about how she was going to lie to her friends. She had been lucky enough to have been accepted into their Party, whose number one rule was <em>friends don’t lie</em>. Some party member she was going to be.</p><p>“It was good,” she answered vaguely. “I’m going to hang out with my friends now.”</p><p>A normal mother might insist that Max have breakfast first, but Susan was not a normal mother. “All right, honey,” she said. Then she turned her head slightly to face Billy and added weakly, “Maybe Billy will drive you?”</p><p>“I don’t mind skateboarding,” Max said quickly. She was experiencing a strange guilt at what Billy had done for her last night, like she didn’t deserve it. She wasn’t about to force him to drive her somewhere. As if she could force him to do anything.</p><p>“Oh, but it’s so cold, honey-”</p><p>“I’ll wear my coat.”</p><p>“I’ll drive her.” Billy had spoken. He set his mug of coffee down on the counter and withdrew the keys to his Camaro from the pocket of his denim jacket. “Let’s go.”</p><p>With no further discussion, he marched forward, heading for the front door. Max scrambled after him, recognizing that she shouldn’t keep him waiting. It wasn’t totally abnormal for him to agree to drive her places, but he usually wasn’t quite so forthcoming about it, especially not when it was Susan who was asking.</p><p>She was so quick about following him that she ended up getting to the car first. He smirked as he unlocked it, like he enjoyed the level of control he had over her. She tried to relax a little; she didn’t want him to feel like he had control over her.</p><p>It felt like last night all over again when she got in the car and he started the engine before leaning towards her.</p><p>“Last night never happened, is that clear?” He began. “The only thing you need to take away from last night is what you agreed. Do you remember?”</p><p>She could not possibly forget. It had been all she could think about until she’d fallen asleep. She stared at him, remembering the exact way in which he’d told her she could never get involved in what went down between him and Neil ever again. “Yes.”</p><p>“What? Tell me.” His eyes bored into her.</p><p>She felt her hands shaking, so she wrapped them around her knees. “I’ll never get involved again,” she said flatly.</p><p>Billy held his gaze on her for another moment, then sat back and grabbed ahold of the steering wheel. “You sure as hell won’t.”</p><p>She glared at him automatically, as she always did when he acted controlling. But she hadn’t forgotten the reason he’d made her promise that last night, more adamantly than all the times before. It was on her face, in the purple coloring surrounding her eye.</p><p>Last night had happened. Maybe they would never talk about it again, but it had happened. And maybe Billy didn’t want Neil to hit her because Neil wasn’t her dad, but maybe it was also because he was her brother. Maybe he was full of shit when he said he had to look out for her and that they were family, but maybe it was also truer than his tone suggested it was when he said it.</p><p>She was a bad sister for the sick relief she’d felt when she knew she wasn’t supposed to face Neil again, that she was supposed to let him hurt Billy. She was a bad person for that in general. Billy was a bad brother, too, and last night hadn’t changed that.</p><p><em>This shit should not have happened. You get that right?</em> That was what Billy had said to her in the car.</p><p>She was a bad sister, he was a bad brother. But she was his sister and he was her brother. Never before had that been enough. And maybe it wasn’t enough now, either.</p><p>But he cared that the same thing that happened to him week after week didn’t happen to her even one more time. And even if it wasn’t enough, it was something.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I feel like this was so extremely generic but sometimes I like generic stories so doesn't necessarily have to be bad...  I definitely want to do more Billy/Max that is less generic than this but I had to like warm myself up I guess haha.</p><p>I don't know why this is so long like what even happens to make it as long as it is I truly do not know.</p><p>Regardless I hope it was enjoyable!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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